The Letter of Credit. Warner Susan
with a mingling of unwillingness and curiosity, opened it. What she saw was not exactly what she had expected; curiosity grew and unwillingness abated. She asked the stranger in with tolerable civility. He was nice looking, she confessed to herself, and very nicely dressed! not at all the rubbishy exterior which Rotha somehow associated with her idea of missionaries. He came in and sat down, quite like an ordinary man; which was soothing.
"Mother is out," Rotha announced shortly.
"It is so much the kinder of you to let me come in."
"I was not thinking of kindness," said Rotha.
"No? Of what then?
"Nothing in particular. You do not want kindness."
"I beg your pardon. Everybody wants it."
"Not kindness from everybody then."
"I do."
"But some people can do without it."
"Can they? What sort of people?"
"Why, a great many people. Those that have all they want already."
"I never saw any of that sort of people," said the stranger gravely.
"Pray, did you?"
"I thought I had."
"And you thought I was one of them?"
"I believe so."
"You were mistaken in me. Probably you were mistaken also in the other instances. Perhaps you were thinking of the people who have all that money can buy?"
"Perhaps," Rotha assented.
"Do you think money can buy all things?"
"No," said Rotha, beginning to recover her usual composure; "but the people who have all that money can buy, can do without the other things."
"What do you mean by the 'other things'?"
Rotha did not answer.
"I suppose kindness is one of them, as we started from that."
Rotha was still silent.
"Do you think you could afford to do without kindness?"
"If I had money enough," Rotha said bluntly.
"And what would you buy with money, that would be better?"
"O plenty!" said Rotha. "Yes, indeed! I would stop mother's working; and I would buy our old home, and we would go away from this place and never come back to it. I would have somebody to do the work that I do, too; and I would have a garden, and plenty of flowers, and plenty of everything."
"And live without friends?"
"We always did," said Rotha. "We never had friends. O friends! – everybody in the village and in the country was a friend; but you know what I mean; nobody that we cared for."
"Then you have no friends here in New York?"
"No."
"I should think you would have stayed where, as you say, everybody was a friend."
"Yes, but we couldn't."
"You said, you would if you could stop your mother's working. Do you think she would like that?"
"O she's tired to death!" said Rotha; and her eyes reddened in a way that shewed there were at least two sides to her character. "She is not strong at all, and she wants rest. Of course she would like it. Not to have to do any more than she likes, I mean."
"Then perhaps she would not choose to take some work I was thinking to offer her. Or perhaps you would not take it?" he added smiling.
"We must take it," said Rotha, "if we can get it. What is it?"
"A set of shirts. A dozen."
"Mother gets seventy five cents a piece, if they are tucked and stitched."
"That is not my price, however. I like my work particularly done, and I give two dollars a piece."
"Two dollars for one shirt?" inquired Rotha.
"That is my meaning. Do you think your mother will take them?"
For all answer the girl clapped her two hands together.
"Then you are not a master tailor?" she asked.
"No."
"I thought maybe you were. I don't like them. What are you, please?"
"If I should propose myself as a friend, would you allow it?"
Is this a "kindness"? was the suspicion that instantly darted into Rotha's mind. The visiter saw it in her face, and could have smiled; took care to do no such thing.
"That is a question for mother to answer," she said coolly.
"When it is put to her. I put the question to you."
"Do you mean, that you are talking of being a friend to me?"
"Is that too bold a proposition?"
"No – but it cannot be true."
"Why not?"
"You cannot want me for a friend. You do not know me a bit."
"Pardon me. And my proposal was, that I should be a friend to you."
"I always thought there were two sides to a friendship."
"True; and in time, perhaps, when you come to know me as well as I know you, perhaps you will be my friend as well."
"How should you know me?" said Rotha quickly.
"People's thoughts and habits of feeling have a way of writing themselves somehow in their faces, and voices, and movements. Did you know that?"
"No – " Rotha said doubtfully.
"They do."
"But you don't know me."
"Will you put it to the proof? But do you like to hear the truth spoken about yourself?"
"I don't know. I never tried."
"Shall I try you? I think I see before me a person who likes to have her own way – and has it."
"You are wrong there," said Rotha. "If I had my own way, I should not be doing what I am doing; no indeed! I should be going to school."
"I did not mean that your will could get the better of all circumstances; only of the will of other people. How is that?"
"I suppose everybody likes to have his own way," said Rotha in defence.
"Probably; but not every one gets it. Then, when upon occasion your will is crossed, whether by persons or circumstances, you do not take it very patiently."
"Does anybody?"
"Some people. But on these occasions you are apt to shew your displeasure impatiently – sometimes violently."
"How do you know?" said Rotha wonderingly. "You cannot see that in my face now?"
And she began curiously to examine the face opposite to her, to see if it too had any disclosures to make. He smiled.
"Another thing, – " he went on. "You have never yet learned to care for others more than for yourself."
"Does anybody?" said Rotha.
"How is it with your mother?"
"Mother? – But then, mother and I are very different"
"Did I not intimate that?"
"But I mean I am naturally different from her. It is not only because she is a Christian."
"Why are you not a Christian too?"
Rotha hesitated. Her interlocutor was certainly a great stranger; and as certainly she had not found it possible to read his face; notwithstanding, two effects had resulted from the interview thus far; she believed in him, and he was somewhat imposing to her. Dress and manner might have a little to do with this; poor Rotha had rarely in her short life spoken to any one who had the polish of manner that belongs to good breeding and the habit of society; but that was not the whole. She felt the security and